The Second Child  Promises To Keep
by James Lee
Summary: A story that runs in parallel with End of Evangelion.  This is the Third Impact as experienced by the Second Child. Note: Official Final Draft finished 41601. Tako Balls Fan Fiction Awards 2001 Nominee for Best Structure, Best Children Characterization, a
1. Ascension / Don't Leave Me

  
Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha  
The Second Child - Promises To Keep  
  
Part 1 - Ascension / Don't Leave Me  
  
A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.  
  
"This is the climax of Evangelion's grand Blasphemy. To end the   
circle. To contravene existence."  
  
"Where Lucifer failed in an age long ago forgotten, Lorenz intended   
to succeed in an age of science. SEELE sought Instrumentality through  
  
the cessation of Otherness. In the beginning of the world there was   
a man, a woman, and a promise, from whom sprung human history; thus,   
at the end of the world SEELE sought to sunder the man, the woman,   
and the promise, from each Other."  
  
"And so it came to pass that the burden of the fate of the world   
would fall on three grieving, alienated, lost children."   
  
Silence. Darkness.  
  
In the midst of the disintegration, the depths of LCL, of dissolved   
existences, stray insubstantial strings of fragmenting memories float  
in the abyss, breaking up into nothingness...  
  
Here drifts a strand of a memory of Shinji's voice, crying in the   
void...   
  
"Help me.. Help me, Asuka. Hey.. wake up. Wake up.   
Wake up. Hey.. Hey.. Asuka.. Asuka.. ASUKA!  
Help me. Help me.  
Help me. Help me!  
Call me a fool, like you always do! Just please wake up!"  
  
The memory of his crying floats into an echoing memory of Maya's   
hysterical screaming...  
  
"Shinji! Where are you? Asuka, she's.. Asuka, she's...!"  
  
What's left is a whisper of the memory of his last sane word...  
  
"Asuka...?"  
  
The memories, and the voices, continue their disintegration,   
fade into the void...  
  
"ASUKA!!"  
  
Asuka opens her eyes with a gasp, as if from the stranglehold of   
a nightmare, and finds herself standing in front of a familiar   
elevator at NERV. She looks around, panting, disoriented; she is   
alone in the hot, dimly-lit corridor. It is deathly quiet, here   
among the grim shadows; the only sound she hears is of her own   
heavy breathing - tired, gasping, adrenaline-heavy breathing.   
Her heart beating quickly, as if fleeing something terrible.   
The blouse of her school uniform is drenched with cold sweat.   
She cannot remember how she got here, or where she has just   
come from.  
  
The familiar dial indicating the elevator's floor level stares   
dully back at her, cold and unmindful of her confusion.  
  
The corridor is so dark she can hardly make out the lumps on   
the floor toward the end of the hallway; they look almost like   
corpses.  
  
The doors open with a jarring ring, a ray of light, and a swoosh   
of air, and Asuka hurriedly steps in. But as soon as she sees   
the passenger inside she turns white, and as the doors close   
behind her, her blue eyes narrow in remembered, barely repressed   
anger. She has to contain an urge to lunge at the figure in front   
of her, to tear her hair and choke her neck. Like a doll.  
  
"You're late, Asuka."  
  
"What are you doing here, First Child?"  
  
The impassive, blue-haired figure in the school uniform remains   
standing with her back to Asuka.   
  
"I should ask you that question, Second Child."  
  
"Don't get smart on me, you..."  
  
The redhead abruptly grabs Rei's wrist and pulls, forcing Rei to   
face her, and just as suddenly Rei's expression transforms as she   
violently shakes off Asuka's hand. For a fraction of a second the   
two women glare angrily at each other. Asuka raises her right arm   
to slap her when Rei beats her to it, delivering a blow that sends   
the Second Child staggering back.   
  
"A doll, am I?" the First Child whispers, in a gentle breaking   
voice, scarlet eyes blazing and fists clenched and shaking at her   
sides, as she edges closer to the Second Child, who backs away in   
shock at Rei's uncharacteristic aggressiveness. "No. I chose to   
do this. I died to protect him. I died to protect him..."  
  
The Second Child falls on her back as she withdraws, and continues   
to back off. She feels a ringing in her ears, a roaring in her   
head. Her mind reeling from the powerful whiplash in Rei's barely   
audible voice, a surprising hint of outrage and anger, of  
frightening, unimaginable power, in a voice so small. Lillith!   
Ghostly white light flashing in her eyes. A flash of understanding   
as Asuka nearly blacks out. Lillith! Images, overpowering in their   
vividness, suddenly flutter in swarms through Asuka's mind.  
Remembered images of the white-winged Eva series tearing her   
red Eva-02 to shreds, of predators circling the sky for the kill, of   
a spear slicing her upraised arm in half, and of spears impaling   
her red Eva again and again, incredible pain, screams, dying...  
  
"I died to protect you." Not Rei's voice. Kyoko's. "I died to   
protect you."  
  
"Momma!"  
  
Her breath catches in her throat. She is back in the elevator,   
looking up at someone who is suddenly a stranger to her.  
  
She was dead, she realizes. Or is she? But what is she doing here?  
  
The redhead's stunned face reflected in Rei's scarlet eye. A   
moistness collecting in its edge. The reflected image of a   
frigtened girl covers her face in her hands. The eye blinks. Rei  
speaks.  
  
"Why are you here, Asuka? Why do you live? Why do you die?"  
  
Asuka's memory flashes mercilessly. Around her, LCL turning blood  
red. Searing pain shooting down her right arm and blinding her left eye.   
Screaming. A ghostly image of Rei appearing over her. Eyes the color   
of blood looking down on her, expressionless, waiting... waiting.   
She feels herself fading... into insubstantial nothingness...  
  
"No!! I won't give up!!" she had screamed at her.  
  
Spears impaling the red Eva, again and again, as she blacks out...  
  
"Asuka?"  
  
"Momma..."  
  
Rei stops, and her eyes go wide like a doused fire, fists unclench,   
as she stares down at the figure now huddled in the corner of the   
elevator, her face hidden in her arms, crying disconsolately.  
  
"Momma... I didn't want to die..."  
  
Minutes pass. The dial over the elevator doors moves, slowly, almost   
imperceptibly. As if time has slowed to a crawl, waiting for the   
sobbing to subside. Hours seem to pass, inside the private world   
of their elevator.  
  
"Rei... whatever they did to you, you're in my head now, aren't   
you?"  
  
"I broke free from Ikari's father...," replies Rei, her voice in  
a whispered monotone. "I broke free from his delusion... only partly   
because of what you said, partly for Shinji, but also because I   
wanted to..."  
  
"I'm sorry, Rei... you were right... about the Eva..."  
  
"... She's all right now, Asuka... her soul fled when the Eva died."  
  
"But she's left me again..."  
  
"You fought well. And she died protecting you to the last moment."  
  
"I failed her."  
  
The Second Child falls silent, her face still hidden in her hands.   
The First Child calmly stares on, hesitating, weighing the words   
on her lips.  
  
"No, Asuka... you're not finished here yet, you haven't died...   
your mission isn't done..."  
  
"Just who are you, Rei? Why am I here? What role are we playing   
now...?"  
  
"There's a choice you need to make... with the Third Child..."  
  
"Shinji? ... What are you talking about...?"  
  
"He's been calling you."  
  
Rei pauses, pensive, and turns her back to Asuka once more.   
She appears to stare at something through the doors. Ayanami's   
calm voice is but a whisper.  
  
"Listen... can't you hear him? ...."  
  
Light streams in through the suddenly translucent walls, which   
seem to shimmer and go faint, then disappear. The two female   
pilots, now clad in their plugsuits, seem suspended high up in   
the clouds, storm winds howling violently all around them.  
  
"Can you hear him?"  
  
Asuka strains her ears, trying to filter out the wind, when to   
her surprise she clearly hears, in her head, a familiar voice   
whispering, anxiously calling her name. As if his thoughts had   
reached out to brush hers. It is a touch with a strange yearning   
urgency, and a desperate fear, she had never heard, or sensed,   
before.  
  
"I had to bring you here because I heard him calling out. You   
are free to respond as you wish."  
  
She suddenly sees the purple figure of Unit-01 hovering in the   
distance. She nearly breaks into a smile at the sight, then frowns,   
remembering that Rei is watching her. "You're too late, stupid,"   
she starts to think, hurt and angry. But she gasps as the Eva   
unfurls huge wings, bat-like and glowing like a vengeful demon's.   
She knows only one other type of Eva that could unfurl wings.   
Then abruptly her heart sinks as a single horrified thought   
pierces through her mind...  
  
"No! They're too many... they're going to kill him too..."  
  
Just then one of the white Evas flies overhead, casting a huge   
shadow over the two female pilots. The white Eva carries the bloody,   
severed head of a red Eva, its eye sockets dangling like butchered   
entrails, and heads for Shinji. Other white Evas, like vultures   
dragging pieces of red carrion, follow.  
  
Asuka screams her horror, but this is cut short, as her senses are  
overcome by the heart-rending, despairing scream   
of the male Eva pilot. The winds blow even more violently as Asuka   
and Rei bend over, covering their ears from the blood-curdling   
onslaught.   
  
Yet Asuka can still clearly hear Rei whisper sadly, as if speaking   
directly inside Asuka's mind.  
  
"He knows he's lost you."  
  
Something bright flies past them. A familiar, frightening shape.   
A Lance of Longinus headed straight for Unit-01. Another remembered   
image flickers through Asuka's mind, and her left eye suddenly   
blazes with searing pain.  
  
"No! Not him, too!"  
  
The Evas surround him as the Lance seems to find its mark.   
He screams again. And in the middle of his screams he calls her name   
once more.  
  
"Asuka!! AAAAHH!"  
  
"Shinji! No!"  
  
With renewed, mindless fury, and fighting back tears, she rises and   
runs frantically in Shinji's direction.   
  
She does not hear Rei's whisper, as the First Child watches her run   
to him.  
  
"It's your choice if you want to leave... or stay..."  
  
A blinding light from Eva-01 engulfs all of them. Rei can feel   
Lillith reawakening below, with her inside it. They feel the   
Earth itself shudder.  
  
"May God have mercy on us all."  
  
The beginning of Third Impact.  
  
Silence. Darkness.  
  
A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks...  
  
(To be continued.) 


	2. Alienation, Catharsis / A House Divided

  
Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha  
The Second Child - Promises To Keep  
-------  
  
Part 2 - Alienation, Catharsis / A House Divided  
  
(... continued)  
  
A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.  
  
"The Dead Sea Scrolls foretold the appearance of the last two  
children of the last generation of Earth. That the fatal   
sacrifice of one child would drive the other child to despair,  
and would trigger the end of existence."  
  
"The Scrolls foretold that this would be witnessed by   
the last Angel, to watch over the last shards of their   
broken hearts, of which nothing would be left but for the   
last Children's lonely tears by the empty waters of Babylon."  
  
"The Scrolls foretold, in Job's prophecy, that the End   
could be averted by the faith of that last man, and the   
love of that last woman. That their promise to each other,   
made through the presence of the last Angel, would reopen the   
doors to the Room of the Guf."  
  
"SEELE, in their grand blasphemy, and seeking to prevent   
Redemption, saw to it that the fate of the world would hinge   
on these tormented children, these three imperfect sinners...   
on a boy with no faith, on a girl who would scorn love, in the   
presence of a powerless Angel, a lifeless clone who embodied a   
hollow shell of a promise, a broken man's perverted hope."  
  
Silence.  
  
From the void, Kyoko's voice, sad and forlorn.  
  
"Your father has left us, Asuka."  
  
A hollow voice dripping with heartbreak.  
  
Then Touji's voice, young and mocking.  
  
"Eh? The newlyweds are at it again."  
  
Asuka opens her eyes and finds herself standing alone on a familiar   
train platform. Feeling disoriented, she places a cellphone in a   
pocket of her school uniform, and looks around nonchalantly,   
unmindful of the woman's voice on the PA system, and the metallic   
clanking of a slowing train nearby. Suddenly her eyes go wide as   
she spots two figures on the opposite platform, and her face   
transforms into an angry scowl.  
  
"Well, it looks like he survived after all. And look who he goes   
to first."  
  
On the opposite platform, the Third Child whispers something to  
Rei, and he smiles.  
  
Unaware of the Second Child's glare in the distance behind him.  
  
A thought turns suddenly inside Asuka's mind, bringing with it a   
shifting memory. Hikari's voice.  
  
"Rei likes him, doesn't she?"  
  
"Wonder Girl? No, she's even more dense than Shinji, I can   
tell you that."   
  
"What do you see in him?"  
  
A thought turns in her head, and she tries to shake it off, her   
cheeks burning with new heat.  
  
She turns around to run away, and sees train doors opening in front  
of her. She hurries in, then as the train starts moving away from   
the platform, she reluctantly turns to look back out the window.  
  
Only Rei, staring silently out into space, is left on the receding   
platform. She turns her head in Asuka's direction, and their eyes   
momentarily meet.   
  
"Where is he?", she thinks. Ignoring the city lights whizzing by,   
Asuka stares at her reflection in the clear glass window. The whirr   
of the air conditioning and the mechanical clunks as the train moves   
over the tracks are the only sounds reaching her ears.   
Minutes pass. She is alone in the train car, yet as she stares at   
her reflection, she suddenly notices his reflection sitting next to   
hers. A stray thought brushes her mind, as if she has somehow   
strayed into his private, solitary refuge. She brushes the thought   
aside.  
  
She turns to face him down, and frowns. Unsettled. Her mind flailing   
about for answers, but unwilling to show her fear.   
  
"Why are you here, Third Child?"  
  
He sits there silently, head bowed, eyes hidden, slowly clenching  
and unclenching his right hand. A memory flashes in her mind. He   
was screaming her name, calling for her. She grows more unsettled.  
  
"Why did you call for me? Look at me!"  
  
The boy doesn't reply. He stares ahead, eyes blank. Almost   
catatonic. Like one trapped in a dream. Or imprisoned in a  
nightmare. A mind that sees nothing of the world beyond the  
looking glass of his eyes. A chill runs down the girl's  
spine.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
The boy's lips silently form her name, but no sound comes out.  
  
"Don't you want me to be here? Don't you want me..."  
  
Silence.  
  
What did you just ask him, she thinks to herself, trembling.  
  
A memory flashes in her mind. Back in the NERV staging area.   
Of a red Eva being brought down with a useless dispensable pilot.   
Of a purple Eva hurtling up the catapult to Rei's rescue.  
  
("Why her? Am I so worthless to you, that you couldn't do   
this for me?")  
  
("You love this doll more than you do me, Momma?")  
  
("No! I know better now! But this one isn't about her...")  
  
Another memory assails her. A memory of a desperate battle   
against the Eva series. Of a futile hope for help from a boy  
she wasn't sure cared enough to go to her.  
  
("Where is that moron Shinji!? I wait for him and he doesn't come!")  
  
Of how he came too late.  
  
She shakes her head, warding off the bitter memory. They are back in   
the train, facing each other now. She rises and confronts him,   
pushing her face inches away from his own, as her eyes blaze   
angrily.  
  
"Why won't you help me? Do you hate me this much?"  
  
Silence. A lavender scent wafts up from his collar. Misato's   
perfume. The same perfume she had once smelled on Kaji.   
Trembling, she closes her eyes, murmuring.  
  
"Why? Do I mean nothing to you..."  
  
Kaji's voice reverberates in her head: "Not now Asuka... You're   
still a child." Misato's voice: "No, you shouldn't have it... it's   
not for children." Asuka: "But I'm old enough! So look at me!"   
Shinji: "Here I come!"  
  
Another memory stirs through her mind, twisting and turning.   
Sounds of cello music. Her applause. The kitchen in Misato's   
apartment, their home. Asuka staring at him, her eyes distant   
and pensive. Shinji approaching for their first kiss. Only it isn't   
Asuka he kisses, but a saucy brunette in a red jacket. Misato,   
holding his cheeks in her hands, kisses Shinji full on the mouth,   
clutching him closer, holding their kiss for a long tender moment.  
  
Asuka stares at them, mouth locked open in shock. Misato finally   
releases the boy from her kiss, grabs him in a fervent embrace.   
They're not in Misato's apartment anymore, but by Shinji's entry   
plug, after the encounter with the Angel Reliel, when Misato had   
arrived ahead of Asuka to his side. As she stares, Shinji's face   
changes to Kaji's, then back again to Shinji's. And in a few moments  
the man/boy and Misato are lying naked in bed, Misato's feet   
rising lustily up into the air as the man/boy thrusts  
passionately into her. Asuka averts her gaze, red with anger and   
embarrassment, and stares dully at a solitary electric fan.   
Shinji's voice comes to her, apologetic, "Asuka...?"  
  
She turns to look back at him, only now to find him quiescent on   
his back, with Rei naked and straddled against him, her hands   
carressing his bare chest. "Won't you be one with me, Asuka?"   
he whispers. "It would be nice..."  
  
"Geez, the sight of you makes me sick!" she yells angrily at him.  
  
"I'm sorry... I'll go away now." he whispers sadly back. "Farewell."  
And he disappears.  
  
"You don't know what I want... moron..." she whispers in a choking  
voice.  
  
A memory of her pained voice from her encounter with Arael, a  
memory of herself kneeling behind a closed sliding door, shoots   
through her mind: "What are you doing here? You won't help me...   
You won't even hold me! I don't need you! Nobody!"   
  
Then Asuka and Shinji are back on the train. Shivering, she opens   
her eyes, just in time to see images of Rei and Misato, blue and   
red shadows, fading into the air behind a pensive Shinji. She  
glares, clenches her fist, growls.  
  
"I see, so that's it... Idiot... you womanizing pervert!...   
you just want to use me... I never should have kissed you...  
go ahead, enjoy them... I'll just stand here and watch you..."  
  
She leans closer to him, raises her foot on the seat by his side,   
nearly straddling him, his eyes inches from her bosom, her body   
this close arrogantly mocking his discomfiture, his body tensing   
at the dizzying sight and smell and nearness of her. She glares,   
cruel, eyes cold yet burning with anger, and she whispers hoarsely   
into his face.  
  
"If I can't have you all to myself, then I don't want you."   
  
(Rei, watching from behind Asuka, gasps in shock as she hears   
two AT fields snap, for just a brief instant. The First Child   
senses her two co-pilots' ego boundaries cross into each other in   
that instant, and their Instrumentality dreamworlds merge into one.   
But it only lasts for a moment, as Asuka withdraws, unknowingly   
forcing her AT field back shut.)  
  
Asuka finds herself momentarily dazed, her ears buzzing, her  
mind drowning in the boy's self-revulsion, her mind struggling   
to catch a disturbing strand of thought, trying to put words  
to it, as a new image stirs inside her mind...  
  
"So what? You're nothing to me, just a thing to feed my   
adolescent fantasies." A hollow male voice, the Third Child   
staring down at her as she lies in a coma in her hospital bed.   
A strange, urgent look in his eyes, of inward self-hate and   
outward, raging lust... and she feels Shinji's mind   
desperately yank the memory away from hers, pushing her  
consciousness back inside the train, where she still  
stands in front of him.  
  
Her face freezes in pained disbelief until she finally hears a   
whimpering whisper from the boy.  
  
"I'm... I'm sorry. I'm the lowest of the low..."  
  
Her composure finally breaks, and she yells at him furiously,   
violently.  
  
"Idiot! You're pathetic! A coward! Wimp! How could you!   
How could you! I never needed you! I would rather die than  
be with you! I hate you! I hate you!!"  
  
He's shaking madly, head bowed, words rushing out, rising.  
  
"I'm scum. I know. This is all I'm good for! I'm worthless!  
I'm not even good enough to take Kaji's place   
as a toy, for you or for Misato. You only want me because no   
other guy can stand you, because I let you push me around,   
because you hate Rei, because Misato beat you to Kaji!"  
  
"Why, you-"  
  
"It's true, isn't it!? I was just a toy you threw away when you found  
out we couldn't kiss right! Well, why don't you just go back to Kaji,   
feed your big swelling gaijin ego, at least he won't spoil your dance,   
won't ever beat your damn useless sync ratio, won't apologize, won't  
choke on you, won't disgust you- "  
  
"I hate you!!"  
  
She slaps him. Hard. Her hands lash out, tightening around his   
throat, shaking him like a doll. They crash to the floor.  
  
And the next thing she knows she is in a murderous frenzy, breaking   
the neck, not of Shinji, but of a limp, fragmenting effigy of him. Blood   
splatters on the train windows.  
  
"... help me... don't ... kill me... "  
  
And Asuka wakens from her rage with a convulsive, heart-rending  
shriek.  
  
Shinji's disembodied voice whispers in her mind, "... but I was   
just like you... even though this was what I turned into, when  
you left and I... and I betrayed you... and became hollow shell of   
a human being... but I was hollow to your eyes even before then,   
wasn't I..."  
  
Asuka collapses, kneeling on the floor, hands shaking. Eyes wide   
open, distant, pained, unbelieving. She cringes at the shredded   
cloth and wet bloodied stuffing on the floor. She stares at the   
palms of her hands, stained red, and she closes her eyes, and   
shivers, unable to stop herself from shedding tears.  
  
"Mein Gott... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."  
  
She feels his presence in her mind shrinking away in anger.  
  
"Liar! Why... do you have to be so ambiguous!" he yells.  
  
"Where... you're... Go to hell, Ikari..."  
  
"I will... I have to..."  
  
"No... wait..."  
  
The image of the doll fades, disappears. The train lights blink   
out and die. The passing city lights outside barely illuminate   
the scene inside the impassively moving train.  
  
In the semi-darkness, only the sound of the train rolling   
through breaks in the tracks, and the girl's soft muffled   
sobbing, can be heard.   
  
"Damn you Ikari... what happened to you, what the hell did   
they do to you... I'm... I'm sorry... so sorry..."  
  
For a long time, it seems, the train moves on, unmindful  
of its lone passenger's existence.  
  
Asuka hears footsteps. Rei's voice quietly cuts through   
the silent shadows.  
  
"Did you really try to understand him?"  
  
"... I don't care."  
  
"Do you really?"  
  
"He's too stupid to understand me anyway..."  
  
"Are you disappointed in him?"  
  
"The moron hates himself too much for my opinion to matter..."  
  
"You kept pushing him away."  
  
"I... I won't let someone like him hurt me... like my   
parents did..."  
  
"Yet he still hurt you? Even when he was doing nothing?"  
  
"It's too easy to die in the Eva. I couldn't depend on him, the   
weakling. I mean, he didn't even want to be in it!"  
  
"And this mattered to you?"  
  
"It shouldn't!... We're Eva pilots! He and Hikari cared for Touji,   
and look what pain it got them..."  
  
"Didn't Kaji matter more to you in that way?"  
  
"Yes, but he was different. He was Misato's. He was unreachable,  
so he was safe. Not like... not like this idiot..."  
  
"You denied that anyone could matter to you... Is this why you   
wouldn't even let Shinji know, that time you checked on him   
in the hospital after Leliel?"  
  
"I shouldn't have to care... especially him..."  
  
"Yet you kept minding him so. Is this why you lost so easily   
to Bardiel and Zeruel, losing your focus, worrying over him?"  
  
"Stop it, Rei..."  
  
"You couldn't even make up your mind about wanting to   
kiss him..."  
  
"Stop it..."  
  
"This feeling you hold back frightens you... why?"  
  
"I'm not frightened!" yells the Second Child, and looks up at   
Rei, only she isn't there. There is barely enough light with   
which to see the face of the shadow standing over her a few feet   
away, but she can see that the shadow has long red hair. And   
angry blue eyes. And the shadow replies to Asuka in Asuka's   
own voice.  
  
"Not frightened, little child? Stupid, maybe. You don't want   
to feel vulnerable, little fraulein, you don't want to let   
someone else get inside and mess you up. You build up all these   
defenses. You build up your own little AT field, for years, so   
nothing more can hurt you, then one stupid person wanders into   
your stupid life. He doesn't ask for anything. But he does   
something dumb one day like rescue you, or kiss you, or just plain  
tolerate you for what you are, and suddenly   
your life isn't your own anymore. He becomes your weakness. You   
hate him for it, and he never knew, that he took away your   
armor, your invulnerability, and got inside you, long before   
Arael did..."  
  
"Shut up..."  
  
"This boy was the last face you saw before you lost your mind   
inside Arael! You lost your mind to run away from Shinji,  
didn't you?"  
  
"Shut up! Please..."  
  
"... And now that the boy you knew is gone, leaving just this  
pathetic shell you claimed him to be all along, now that you've  
made it so that he can't ever be yours, now you have the nerve   
to feel so sorry for yourself! You're like Kyoko, forcing him away   
while you wallowed in your self-pity. You're more pathetic than   
any of them..."  
  
"... Who are you?"  
  
"I am Asuka. I am you as you see yourself, idiot!"  
  
The long-haired shadow approaches closer, then is briefly   
illuminated by the light of a passing train, revealing the near-  
emotionless face of a girl with short blue hair and scarlet eyes  
betraying a hint of surprise.  
  
Rei speaks to Asuka once more.  
  
"He tried. He said he did. You never gave him a chance.   
Were you afraid of what he would find?"  
  
"He would find someone worthless! It's why I just had to be   
better than him, be better than you and that weakling, always...   
Without the Eva, without being the best pilot, I was worthless,   
useless... Until I found out about Momma... and faced my fear...   
to accept my self... but... but then it was too late..."  
  
"You and he are the same then. Opposite movements of the same  
dance. You two have been dancing the same dance all along, even   
without Israfel, even up till now. Yet you both cling to your   
alienation."  
  
"... How would you know, Rei? How do you know so much about   
him?"  
  
Asuka looks up at Rei, who seems to change as the passing city   
lights outside alternately enter and leave the train. Her   
schoool uniform is gone, replaced by a lab coat that reminds her   
of Ritsuko's. Rei's hair turns a shade brown. The eyes lose their red  
tint, grow older, more tired.   
  
"I know. I felt it whenever he was in the entry plug. I felt it  
when the Eva tried to absorb him."  
  
"Rei? You're not Rei..."  
  
Asuka hears Kyoko whisper to her ear.  
  
"This is his mother. She was in his Eva too."  
  
"His mother!? Rei!?"  
  
"Lillith has absorbed the Eva," answers   
Yui. "We don't have much time, child."  
  
From out of nowhere, Shinji's scream, prolonged and hoarse, suddenly   
interrupts them. The train car is bathed in gloomy red luminiscent   
fog, and the train walls, floor, and ceiling shimmer and disappear.   
  
(To be continued...)  
  
****  
Writer's Notes:  
This chapter is dominated by a mad moving kaleidoscope of dream scenes  
and flashbacks, where settings and context shift and change violently,  
mirroring the Intrumentality experience of Shinji as depicted in  
the EoE movie. In order to understand the narrative here, it  
is necessary for the reader to be familiar with EoE and certain  
events in the TV series, including some "Director's Cut" scenes  
in the enhanced Japanese home-video version of Episode 22; in  
particular, the additional footage of Asuka's encounter with Arael  
is referred to several times in this story, especially in light of  
the resemblance to Shinji's Instrumentality experience in EoE.  
  
Part of Asuka's dialogue regarding vulnerability and armor is   
adapted from similar words spoken by Rose Walker to Desire of   
the Endless in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: The Kindly Ones".  



	3. Anomie, The Fall/ Rage Against the Dying...

  
Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha  
The Second Child - Promises To Keep  
-------  
  
Part 3 - Anomie, The Fall/ Rage Against the Dying of the Light  
  
(continued from Part II)  
  
A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.  
  
"This the climax of the new Akedah. In an age long ago forgotten,  
Abraham sacrificed his only son Isaac for the God of the Hebrews.   
In the Age of Evangelion, the evolution of humanity would be   
heralded by the sacrifice of the only child of Yui Ikari and the   
only child of Kyoko Langley, and completed through the sacrifice by   
Lillith of her own children, in expiation for the sins of the   
Lillim."  
  
"What Lorenz did not consider in his schemes was the love of the  
mothers Yui and Kyoko for their children, even in death. And the   
recorded fact that Yahweh did not let Isaac die."  
  
A voice in the void. Yui Ikari speaks.  
  
"It was on the edge of the abyss that Kyoko was able to help her  
daughter rebirth her Self. It was within that abyss that Rei - who  
was mother, self, and daughter to me - tried to do the same for  
my son. And offer him the hope of a second chance with   
Kyoko's daughter."  
  
"He was the son of humanity's striving for its self. Faced with the  
choice of growing up, or retrogressing to the cosmic womb. Between  
pain and desire on one hand, and submission and a kind of  
death on the other."   
  
"To understand why the center of his collapsing universe shifted  
from his father to the Second Child, it is necessary to remember that   
he was, in fact, no longer a child, yet not yet a man."   
  
"His alienation from his father had destroyed his sense of Self, yet   
he was at the age where his desire for the Other was manifesting itself.   
It was this desire that Asuka had unleashed, and matched with her own   
flowering. For Shinji, Asuka was the personification of the Other,   
someone he both desired and feared from a most primal level. Yet it is   
said that the cosmos demands balance, between man and woman, yin   
and yang, fire and ice, Self and Other. Without a sense of Self, Shinji   
was in no position to offer the Other his love, nor to accept love in  
return; only a tragic meeting of phantom selves would have ensued.   
SEELE's forced Instrumentality, this violent imposition of will,   
would have made easy union with her possible with the cessation of   
Self and Other, but he knew deep inside that he would have lost her,   
and himself, this way. In order to survive, he had to be willing to accept   
his Self. Only then would he be able to start to reach out for the Other,  
and by extension reach out for the world. "   
  
"The Third Impact made it necessary for Shinji and Asuka to understand   
something of the nature of love, in a considerably compressed amount of   
time. I was not sure they could possibly survive the trauma."  
  
The voice fades, unheard, back into the void.  
  
-----  
  
The Second Child walks cautiously through the red fog,   
lost and bewildered.  
  
"Shinji? ... Rei?" she calls out. "... Mrs. Ikari... What...  
What did you mean, we don't have much time?" she whispers.   
She strains her ears, pauses, wondering if she's hearing the   
wind or an echo of his voice calling out. Hoping to hear the  
latter.  
  
Instead she hears Rei's whimper.  
  
The Second Child stares down, in wide-eyed shock, at the figure   
crouched down in front of her. Rei in her plugsuit, one hand and  
one arm wrapped in bandages, groaning in pain, forlorn eyes blinking  
away tears at the edges. Asuka reaches out to her uncertainly,   
kneels on one knee, hesitantly wraps one arm around her fellow   
pilot.  
  
"No. We don't have time. What's done is done...  
Now we wait," murmurs the First Child, as she lays her head onto  
Asuka's arm.  
  
The Second Child stares down at her, eyes flashing in   
tired irritation for a brief second, before she hangs her head   
down and whispers back.  
  
"You are full of surprises, Rei."  
  
"It's calm here, Asuka. This place is a crossroad. It's sometimes  
at great personal cost that we come to places like this. If only  
for a moment."  
  
"Rei... Why are we waiting here? He should be here... Is he still   
fighting the Eva series? I... I don't know, but I think I can still   
sense him screaming..."  
  
"I couldn't save his father, and I couldn't save him. This... this  
is why I cry... The Instrumentality process has already begun."  
  
"... We lost, didn't we?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
"No... that's crazy... why? I want to know why..."  
  
"He's losing the will to fight it. An insane child   
cannot save the world."  
  
"I have to help him..."  
  
"It wasn't your fault, Asuka. You were SEELE's blood sacrifice,  
as Ikari's anointed precursor. It couldn't be helped. It's all   
in Ikari's hands now."  
  
"I want to know what happened to him."  
  
"You don't have to know. You've been through so much already.   
You don't have to relive the pain, seeing him go through it   
too. We can just wait."  
  
"Rei. I want to know. Please."  
  
The First Child turns to look up at her fellow pilot's eyes. Her   
image reflected in determined blue eyes rimmed with accumulating   
tears. The eyes of the First Child blink.  
  
Rei takes Asuka's arm off her shoulder and slowly stands. She   
scowls, and hesitates, as if deliberating something. A measure  
of purpose returning to her own eyes.  
  
Kyoko's voice rings out from the void, startling Asuka.  
  
"... She's strong enough now. Do it, Yui!"  
  
Suddenly with a grunt and a swing of her good arm, Rei hits the   
misty air beside her, where a train window used to be.  
  
Sounds of a glass barrier breaking, wind blowing. Rei   
turns back to look, blue hair windblown, scarlet eyes pleading,   
at the Second Child.   
  
Blinding light.  
  
"As you wish. Listen to him, Asuka..."  
  
Silence. Abrupt darkness. A faint hint of an introspective cello tune   
is playing, almost imperceptibly, in the far distant background,   
until it shies away, and fades, followed closely by Rei's   
trailing voice.  
  
"Listen to him..."  
  
Light.  
  
Asuka is back in the kitchen of Misato's apartment. Their home.   
She spots Penpen huddling confused in a corner. As she stands by   
the door, she sees herself, or rather, a replica of herself,   
cradling Kaji's arm. But the image of Kaji fades away, and the  
image of Asuka stares out into nothing, her eyes hollow, and she  
sits down on a chair, her arms slumped on the table.  
  
("Who... Who is this, Rei?")  
  
("This is you as you exist in the Third Child's mind.")  
  
("You mean he's imagining this?")  
  
("Listen!")  
  
"But I like Asuka..."  
  
("Huh-")  
  
Shinji comes rushing, frantic and frightened, into the room.  
  
"I want to help you, Asuka, and be with you forever."  
  
("...What? I... I...") She feels her knees shaking, heart rapidly   
pulsating, blood draining.   
  
"Then don't come near me. All you ever do is hurt me."  
  
She is startled at hearing her own voice, sharp... and cold.   
She tries to move, but cannot.  
  
("But, but that's not me! Wait!")  
  
"Asuka, help me! You're the only one who can! Asuka!"  
  
"Liar! To you, anybody will do. You're afraid of Katsuragi and   
Ayanami. You're afraid of your father and mother. So you're only   
using me to escape. You can't be happy this way."  
  
("Wait, shut up! Why do you have to be like this!?")  
  
"Please, help me!"  
  
"You never think of other people! You only think of your own   
existence! You only think of yourself! You're pathetic!"  
  
("Shinji!")  
  
"Asuka... who... who can save me? Please help me... please help   
me... me... please help me! Don't ignore me! Don't ignore me!   
Don't kill me!"  
  
"No."  
  
("That's not me!")  
  
Unseen, she witnesses the entire scene, with the mirage-Asuka pushing   
the Third Child relentlessly away, and Shinji falling on the floor.   
Asuka screams at him to fight back, but when he lunges in manic   
rage for the mirage-Asuka and strangles it, she recoils in shock. She   
angrily reaches out to stop him, but stops, in the blink of an eye,   
when she abruptly realizes he is strangling... a limp   
red-haired doll.   
  
She hears his thoughts, his mind finally breaking, his   
sanity unraveling, his self disintegrating, eyes hollow and vacant,   
unaware of the consequences of his surrender.   
  
She can feel him falling as she shrieks out to him.  
  
("That's... no! Shinji! Don't go there!")  
  
She staggers back, bent over, covering her ears, yelling above the   
Third Child's hysterical thoughts in her head, her voice   
desperately trying to get through to him.  
  
"Betrayed! You betrayed my feelings..."   
  
("No! That's not me!")  
  
She feels herself briefly back in her entry plug. Explosions   
reverberate around her Eva as depth charges shower down on the   
lake bottom, drowning out her pleas.  
  
"Nobody wants me, I should just disappear... so everyone   
just go..."  
  
"Wimp! I would never want to be with you! I hate you!   
I hate you!"  
  
("That's not me! Listen to me! Look at me!")  
  
"But I like Asuka..."  
  
"But if I were to be with you, I would rather die!"  
  
("That's not me! Come back! Come back!")  
  
"Everyone, just go..."  
  
("No!!")  
  
Darkness.   
  
An image assaults her mind; Lillith-Rei sadly cups the black moon   
in her hands, as pinpricks of light shoot up from all over a red   
planet. A terrible realization dawns on her.  
  
("Mein Gott! Shinji, what are you doing... you infinitely stupid   
moron... stop it...")  
  
Lillith turns to her, her face emotionless but speaking in   
Ayanami's voice, dripping with regret.   
  
"I am truly sorry, child..."  
  
("NO!!!")  
  
The Apocalypse.  
  
Silence.  
  
And it is over.  
  
She is alone. Crying in the void. Catching her breath. Thoughts in   
disarray, disbelief. Fists clenched in confused frustration.  
  
"Stupid... How... He would end the world because of this?"  
  
Rei speaks, a voice in the void. "If he continues to lose his mind,   
yes. We will know shortly... He is like his father, in a way."  
  
"He's not his father!"  
  
"And you're not your mother."  
  
"... I'm not... Momma..."  
  
In the dark, she senses someone take a sharp nervous intake of   
breath just inches in front of her face. Rustling sounds of someone   
rushing to move away from her, footsteps moving around her,   
followed by a soft muffled thud behind her. She wakes up, lying   
on a futon, in their room in Misato's apartment, on the night   
before the battle with Israfel. She half-opens her eyes and   
turns around, espies Shinji lying on the floor away from the futon,   
hidden under his blankets. She wipes the wetness from her eyes,   
and watches him fall asleep. She touches her fingers to her lips.  
She lays still, watching him... as the night grows longer...  
  
She doesn't know how long she's been staring.  
  
"... Rei?"  
  
"Yes. I'm here."  
  
"Is... is it all true, what she said about him, about his feelings,   
in the kitchen?"  
  
"About as true as what he said to you in the train."   
  
"It all came down to nothing then, all we did was let each   
other down."  
  
"But what he said to you in the kitchen, that was also real. What   
you wanted to ask him, back in the train, and even what you  
said to yourself about him, was also real."  
  
"So which ones among all our selves are real?"  
  
"All of them are, it really depends on you."  
  
"But neither of us was listening. We didn't have to be as bad   
as what we believed we were..."  
  
"You see it now. The secret to the Eva was in harnessing the   
power of your heart to touch it. Neither you nor the Third Child   
could endure when you thought your hearts barren. Your hearts   
did not have to be so desolate."  
  
"So this is the end, is it? We lose to them, we lose the will to   
fight them, because of our inner weaknesses... what fabulous,   
pathetic Eva pilots we turned out to be ... But why tell   
me all this, when it's all over, what's the use now?"  
  
"So you can understand why this all happened. The Third Child wants   
to feel accepted. He most needs to be accepted by she who is also   
the one he fears the most, and the one who rejects him most   
vehemently. So he rejects himself in turn, so he's lost the ability   
to exist and the will to live."  
  
"I didn't know. But... no... I couldn't risk it... they would all just  
turn crazy on me, or die on me... they would all just hurt me!"   
  
"You simply assumed what others thought."  
  
"I don't even know what my real feelings are..."  
  
"Again, it's always been up to you."  
  
"But I don't know if I can forgive him... or if I can even forgive   
myself, for that matter..."  
  
"You were given a human heart and hands so you can change  
that which you can change."  
  
"But I can't change the past... and if I could change the past,  
knowing what I know now, it wouldn't be real..."  
  
"I know. We can only go forward."  
  
A ghostly figure of Rei appears over Shinji. The boy and the room   
slowly disappear from sight. Asuka sits up, wiping away the wetness   
from her eyes.  
  
"But... what happens now?"  
  
"If this Instrumentality succeeds, humanity will be one Collective.   
There will be no individuals, no barriers, no rejection."  
  
"Is this what we want?"  
  
"There will be no Other to know what one wants, therefore there   
will be no wants, and no hurts. Isn't this your heart's desire?"  
  
"But is that still living? Not if it means losing our freedom,   
our consciousness, our free will... It's a coward's way out! Is this   
what you want, Rei?"  
  
"... I can't decide for him... before returning to Lillith, I   
learned from him that I didn't want to be a doll. I don't wish   
it on anyone; existence is such a precious thing ..."  
  
"He has to bring everyone back!"  
  
The First Child turns, fades and disappears, leaving behind a sad   
whisper.  
  
"It is not too late yet for the Third Child. We wait. But time is   
running out, even for him."  
  
"Shinji...? Wait, Rei, what do you mean!? Rei!"  
  
The Second Child runs. Slides open what was once the door to their   
room. Rushes through a dimly lit doorway. Fear and premonition   
rising like bile in her throat. And abruptly she stops,   
horror-stricken, in front of an insubstantial shadow, a silhouette   
of what could be a woman... or a doll... or a certain young man.   
Hanging limply by the neck, from a rope tied to the ceiling.   
She hears herself release an outraged shriek, dissolving into   
a wail.  
  
"No!! Not you, too..."  
  
She is engulfed in darkness. There is complete silence, save for   
a quivering, sobbing voice whispering into the void left in her   
heart.  
  
"... you moron! I didn't leave you! I didn't leave you!"  
  
Darkness.  
  
"... I did care for you..."  
  
Silence.  
  
"... Everyone leaves me..."  
  
It is twilight under a blood-red sky. She stands in the middle of a   
barren, muddy field littered with graveposts. Heartbeat racing, she   
runs from grave to grave, and scans the names on the nearest   
graveposts. Her heart falls with each name. Ritsuko. Maya. Makoto.   
Shigeru. Gendo. Fuyutsuki. Hikari. Touji. Aida. Kaji. Misato. Her   
hands tremble at the next two graveposts. Shinji. She is crying. She   
turns to the gravepost next to Shinji's. Asuka. She almost   
loses control. She kicks down her gravepost, and faces Shinji's.   
Shivering, tears stinging her eyes, she staggers to her knees in   
front of it, fighting desperately to keep from wailing, and failing.  
  
"Stupid Shinji, how can I ever forgive you for this!?"   
  
She stares up at the luminous white grains congregating in the red   
night sky. Fists clench. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she   
glares at the heavens, daring them to fall down on her.  
  
"We didn't have to end like this..."  
  
Lights like an Eva's eyes seem to her to shimmer in the red sky.   
  
A memory moves in her mind, and she grabs it, holds on desperately   
to it. The memory of her fall into the abyss after her battle with   
Sandalphon. The memory of a reckless, insubordinate purple Eva   
rushing down through red-hot magma to grab her broken cable,   
risking painful death to rescue her. The memory of a smile and a   
soft whisper shared in private between two young pilots. Rivals.   
Comrades. Friends... Partners.  
  
"But I'm not giving up on you, Shinji... I'm not giving up   
on you..."  
  
It is a soft whisper, but her grief-stricken challenge   
reverberates through the heavens.  
  
"Please come back to me..."  
  
Darkness.  
  
(To be continued...)  
  
  
*********  
Writer's Notes:  
The train station scene in Part 2, where Asuka sees Shinji and Rei talking,   
is partly a flashback to one of the "Director's Cut" scenes added to the   
Japanese home video release of Episode 22.   
The "fog scene" that starts Part 3, after Yui's monologue, is adapted from  
the "fog scene" in one of the last TV episodes, in which a lost Shinji calls   
out for his friends.  
The reference to the Akedah was inspired by the reference in the TV series  
to Soren Kierkegaard's work "Sickness Unto Death". The Akedah is discussed  
in his work "Fear and Trembling".  
The graveyard scene during Instrumentality in Part 3 is adapted from one  
of the rumored alternate endings to the EoE movie, in which Asuka kicks  
down her gravepost.  
Dialogue from End of Evangelion was taken from various fansubs and script  
translations posted on the Internet.  
"Rage Against the Dying of the Light" is the title of a poem on   
death by Dylan Thomas.  
  



	4. Thesis, Antithesis / Please Forgive Me

  
Neo Genesis Evangelion - Apocryphia  
The Second Child - Promises To Keep  
  
Part IV - Thesis, Antithesis/Please Forgive Me  
  
(continued from Part III)  
  
A voice in the void. Rei Ayanami speaks.  
  
"It is said that in the beginning of the world, the first   
Adam was accompanied by Lillith, who left him to give birth   
to the Lillim, children of the Angels. Adam reborn in sin then   
took tempestuous Eve as his Wife, mother of his children,   
the woman who gave him pain and gave him love, and thus  
saved him from death."  
  
"The Beginning is the End, and the End is the Beginning.  
A man shall leave his father and take a wife, that  
together they should create their own world. So it is   
written. So it has been commanded. So shall it be. For  
as the circle turns, the Children of the Lillim are the   
Children of the Eva."  
  
A voice in the void. The voice of Kaworu Nagisa speaks.  
  
"Only an Angel incarnated as a Lillim could send the message  
without destroying the life or sanity of the Lillim concerned.   
There is so much about them one can only understand firsthand.   
Take poetry, for instance."  
  
"A sensei once had me read poetry about the end of things. I  
don't remember them all anymore. How did some of it go? I  
remember only fragments. Let me see, if I can paraphrase...  
  
'Some say the world will end in fire,  
Some say in ice...  
I say it will end with the hollow men...  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but with a whisper.'  
  
and I remember wondering, 'but weren't fire and ice used once  
for creating the same world, as in a synthesis... and in the   
end, what words will the last of the Lillim whisper? And why   
would those words have to come out only at the end?'"  
  
Unheard by the world, Nagisa's voice returns to the void.  
  
------  
  
The voice of the Second Child, a lonely figure huddled in front  
of a gravepost. Crying, trying not to fade away. Whispers.  
  
"... Shinji... I need you..."  
  
From the darkness, a ray of light illuminates the corner of the  
void occupied by the Second Child.  
  
"Is this your dream then?" asks the First Child. "To be one with  
Ikari?"  
  
She feels the muddy soil harden like solid wooden planks beneath  
her feet. Some light returns, barely enough for her to look around.   
She is alone now in the semi-dark, on a vacant stage with a solitary   
folding chair thrown down on the stagefloor. Two figures,   
bathed in ghostly light, appear in front of her. One is Rei, the   
other a young boy, about their age, with gray hair and eyes as red   
as Rei's. His eyes grab Asuka's, and he smiles at her in genuine   
affection. And as she stares back at him the boy's smile takes on   
the appearance, almost, of Kaji's roguish grin, the one he used   
to throw at Misato.  
  
"Who are you? What are you in this dream?" she asks.  
  
Rei answers for both of them.   
  
"We are a sign and symbol of hope. That people might someday   
understand each other."  
  
The boy speaks.   
  
"And understand the meaning of a word called 'love.'"  
  
"... What's the use? If this is something I'm only dreaming?"   
  
The boy replies, "Reality is immense and unfamiliar, but in   
it your dream is real. The truth, and your self, are in your   
heart, for you to create."  
  
Asuka feels a presence near her, something at the edge of her   
mind's boundary, a very familiar shadow, and most of all, alive.   
Her heart jumps and she instinctively turns to take a closer look   
around her, her lips about to form Shinji's name, when the stage   
she stands on begins to fade and disappear...  
  
She wraps her arms around herself as a cold breeze sends her   
shivering. She sees, on the horizon, a wintry landscape of trees,   
an inviting childhood memory of what could be Old Bavaria, or the  
woods outside her father's apartment in Vermont, all places long  
gone.   
  
She hears footsteps, feels a different, less familiar presence   
approach slowly, and sit beside her. Ritsuko's voice.  
  
"Is this the dream in your heart? Your dream has new passions you   
yet know nothing about, primal feelings that will eat you out and   
leave you crying and bloodied in the darkness, lonelier than ever.   
A simple word like 'No', a single touch or kiss refused, can turn   
your dream into a glass splinter lodged in your heart. You can   
still leave this dream, drift away, and save yourself from the   
hurt."  
  
"No. These dreams are the only piece of my self I have left."   
  
"But you can't dream this dream alone. Look at you now, look  
what's it brought you. He runs away like his father does. And   
even if you get him back, what if you hurt him again? What if  
he betrays you again?"  
  
"I won't give it up. I know how good his heart has been, and could  
have been. That is enough. He lives on in my self while I exist,   
just like my Momma, and I won't let him die..."  
  
The presence disappears, replaced by another.  
  
She kneels down in the snow, and her eyes catch something red   
lying in the ground. A small, glimmering white, bloodstained   
crucifix drifts into Asuka's outstretched palm. She hears a warm  
whisper of Misato's playful voice riding faintly on the wind...  
  
"Will you ever forgive him? Will you let him come back to you?"  
  
"When you let Kaji back into your life, wasn't it worth it?"  
  
"It's a journey not without pain. Do you want to risk it?"  
  
"Yes... I'm no longer a child after all..."  
  
"Then perhaps you can keep this for him. It's a promise..."  
  
Asuka's hand tighten around the cross, clenching it to her   
chest, as the wind carries away her late guardian's voice.  
  
Darkness. In the distance, the faint sound of waves crashing on a   
beach somewhere.  
  
Rei Ayanami's voice reaches out now to touch her mind,   
whispering. "It's your turn, Asuka. Are you ready?"  
  
And when the light returns, Asuka finds herself back in the   
cavernous train station. She walks in the dark across the tracks,  
towards a distant light at the other end of the station.  
She suddenly frowns, determination in her eyes as she waits for  
something to appear. A grey-hooded figure runs past her,   
followed by another, then another, and soon a huge horde of cowled   
figures is running through the station, filling it beyond capacity  
with the muffled sound of a million fleeing footsteps. And  
Asuka stands her ground, pushing and struggling to avoid being   
swept away and overrun by the crowd.  
  
She grabs one of the hooded figures and forces it to show its face.  
  
She gasps in horror to see it is nothing but the face of bloody red   
LCL. She pushes the figure away from her and it rejoins the   
gray-cowled masses evacuating the station. But the mob avoids her  
now, leaving the small space around her clear as they run past.  
  
"Rei!? Rei, where are you?"  
  
The station lights go out, save for one on the ceiling  
a few feet above and in front of her.  
  
"I am here."  
  
The First Child walks serenely through the onrushing mass,  
her face still impassive, her blue hair and school uniform   
standing out in stark contrast against the onrush of gray that   
clears her path like water across a small ship's bow. She stops   
a few feet in front of the red-clad Second Child, and they stand   
facing each other, red to blue, the First Child and the Second   
Child, like fire and ice facing off across a placid empty space   
at the end of the world, in positions equidistant from the   
solitary light above them.  
  
"What's going on, Rei!?"  
  
"Shinji has rejected Instrumentality, Asuka. It is leaving him,   
as he now wishes."   
  
"He's done it then!? He's brought everyone back?"   
  
"Yes, and no. As pilot of the Eva, he makes the first decision  
to reject Instrumentality. He has thus paved the way for others,   
but each soul's path is its own to decide."  
  
"What do you mean!? We can all come back, can't we?"  
  
"I'm afraid I can't tell you yet... Each soul has a world to  
create, and so the world we knew might indeed return, perhaps   
in a moment, perhaps in a few millenia while the world   
regenerates; but Ikari enabled the greatest blasphemy since   
Eden, so right now he has penance to pay, of what kind I do   
not know. I can't see that far ahead. I'm sorry."  
  
"Damn it, where is he!?"  
  
"He's already back in the world. In the meantime, he will  
remain there as a sign that humanity once existed."  
  
"But... hold on... you mean everyone's leaving him? You're   
leaving him all alone out there!?"  
  
"He has chosen to accept himself. His spirit is broken, but he   
has accepted his freedom. He has accepted his own worth enough that  
he has accepted the risk of being alone, and of being responsible  
for his actions."   
  
"No! No... I can't leave him!"  
  
"... Asuka, you are free now; it is completely up to you now   
if you want to stay here with the rest of humanity, or join  
him since he called for you... "  
  
"Then why are we still here? Where are all these people going?"  
  
"You were alive in the Eva at the time of Instrumentality, and   
he chose you to be part of his dream. These two facts together  
put you in a special situation. It is not without risk to you,   
but you can join his world now if you so wish."  
  
"And what about you? What about the rest of them?"  
  
"Lillith's body is gone, but as Lillith I have to stay, for   
their sake. I feel I owe as much to my children. I have to await   
the rest of the prophecy, and see where it takes us... perhaps  
it will be to a world separate from Ikari's world, but as I said,  
that is the risk he freely took..."  
  
"This is crazy! You can't do this to him!"  
  
"This upsets you, Asuka?"  
  
"Rei!"  
  
"You can wait here with me... you might not   
want to go back to his world if no one else is able to, at   
least for some time more... it is peaceful here, after all,  
whereas the world now is a lonely wasteland where you would  
only share his pain... you're not required to share his  
penance..."  
  
The Second Child, eyes wild and frantic, one hand clutched to  
her chest, starts crossing the gap between them.  
  
"Look! I'm not leaving him! I won't let him! Not again!!"  
  
Shaking hands vehemently clutch Rei's forearms. Blue eyes  
pleading. The women stand there for a while, shaking,   
immovable like primeval forces from creation, staring at   
each other, seeking revelation. And Rei finally averts   
her gaze, looks down, eyes blinking.  
  
"I can see why he needs you. Then... I guess this   
is goodbye, Asuka."  
  
The Second Child clutches Rei in a sudden tight embrace. Rei's  
arms remain stiffly at her sides, and only her eyes  
betray the emotion of her surprise. And with her chin resting   
on her fellow pilot's soft shoulder, Asuka whispers in a   
trembling voice.  
  
"Thank you, Rei... Wondergirl... please take care of   
yourself..."  
  
And in one quick movement she disengages from the First Child,  
turns around, wiping away wetness from her eyes, and runs for the   
nearest train platform. As the station lights come back on,  
illuminating an onrushing sea of gray-cowled figures.  
  
She pushes ahead desperately as she runs for the train's doors,   
and she grabs them, violently pushing to force them open.  
  
As she rushes into the train and the doors close behind her, she   
does not hear Rei's parting words.  
  
"Godspeed, Asuka. Take care of him for me."  
  
She senses a familiar presence come calmly to her side.  
  
"I see the boy has done his part. Will the girl do hers?" asks   
the voice.  
  
"She holds the keys now. She has that which you and I could not   
give him. She also has that which his father refused until the boy   
was no longer a child and it was too late."  
  
"He loses her and so abandons the world. He gives the world  
another chance and she reclaims him. So, it turns out that   
the end of the world is their greatest dance together," chuckles   
Kaworu as he appears beside Rei. "I'm quite sure they'll do well.  
She's special, I see. How I wish I had known her better."  
  
Rei turns to Kaworu, her face still impassive, but with no reply  
from her he continues speaking.  
  
"But tell me, why didn't you just tell her straight out from the   
beginning, that she was the only one in a position to save him,  
and his dream?"  
  
Rei, looking back towards the train, replies, "Because she has   
to decide with her own free will, her own volition, to accept him.   
Not to save herself, but to save him. Hope is a conscious choice   
after all. This is the whole point of all this, that the true  
essence of instrumentality is for two hearts to choose to go   
beyond themselves and start to know each other, separate but   
together, with no conditions."  
  
"Aaah, yes," he nods, "the freedom of the Lillim. Their curse,  
and their blessing. I understand."  
  
He turns to leave, "They have a long, interesting journey  
ahead, but I wouldn't worry too much about your children,   
Lillith... Ayanami."  
  
"I'm not worried..."  
  
The last of the sea of gray leaves the station, behind Rei,  
away from the departing train.  
  
The cavernous train station is empty and silent now, save for the   
lone, pensive figure of the First Child. Her eyes still staring   
in the direction of the departed train. But reflected in her   
scarlet eyes is a figure of a boy by a phone booth on a deserted   
city street, and of a boy lying on an empty beach by a blood-red   
sea, next to an unconscious girl. The boy turns his head and sees   
Rei. The First Child blinks, as her image fades from the station,   
from the street, and from the sea, with a parting whisper.  
  
"Be true to your heart. You deserve to be loved, dear Ikari..."  
  
The train doors close behind Asuka. She looks around, trying  
to see in the dark through the red luminiscent fog. A shadow comes  
out of the mist, becoming a figure of a grown-up human Rei in a   
white lab coat. Yui Ikari smiles at the Second Child.  
  
"Thank you, child... I'm sorry though that you and my son were   
forced to grow up so quickly. My own journey doesn't end here,   
but perhaps you have made it easier... but, is there a stop you   
wish to make first?"  
  
She replies with a speechless nod, suddenly shy.  
  
As the red fog disperses and disappears, Yui nods and smiles one  
final time as her image fades. "Of course. You know what to do.   
Go in peace, child..."  
  
Asuka looks around her and finds she is seated, back inside the   
entry plug of Eva-02. She can feel the water around her entry plug,  
  
at the bottom of the lake. The waters are placid. The warships  
above have disappeared, and the depth charge explosions have   
ceased, leaving her in peace.  
  
In front of her, a spotlight falls on a small redheaded girl   
hugging her mother.  
  
"But I don't want to leave you again, Momma..."  
  
"I will always love you my dear, but you won't be a child forever."  
  
"But what if he leaves me someday too?"  
  
"As long as there is a possibility of happiness, life is worth   
holding on to. As long as there is life, there is a chance to be   
happy. Be strong. Live, Asuka."  
  
The figure of an adolescent redhead in a red   
plugsuit watches from a distance, clutching a small white cross.   
She watches calmly, a single tear falls down her cheek.   
She closes her eyes, and smiles slightly to herself.  
  
"Danke schoen. Goodbye, Momma."   
  
And she hears the sound of a solitary cello playing. She   
doesn't hesitate. She reaches out to a lever on her panel, and   
with a single move and an audible mechanical shudder ejects   
the entry plug. The Second Child closes her eyes, gathering her   
thoughts for a few more moments of peace, listening to the   
cello finish its piece and fade. In her mind she remembers   
lying on a futon in her room, enjoying the rays of the sun,   
as the echoing of the boy's music caresses her soul.  
  
"Hi," she murmurs, standing up, opening her eyes and adjusting  
her yellow dress and her hair. "I'm back."  
  
She reaches out in the semi-dark, finds a light switch and flips  
it, as she continues speaking. "You have an insanely weird way  
of confessing your affection, Third Child. Giving me Armaggedon  
instead of roses. Really stupid. And I should whack you on the  
head for... that thing you did to me, but considering I mangled  
you on the train already, I guess we're even again. You're so   
lucky I'm being nice to you by giving you another chance..." She  
turns around to face him.  
  
She is back to the scene in Misato's kitchen, their home, to a   
scene frozen in time, Shinji's hands tight around the doll's neck,   
his eyes frozen and horror-stricken in a distant, wide-open trance,  
pained and distressed. Asuka calmly walks over, but she can feel  
her hands shiver, and her knees waver slightly. But she pushes on,   
frowns, raising her chin, facing him until their faces are inches   
apart. The familiar steely fire returns to her own narrowed eyes.  
  
"Stupid Shinji, my fallen super-pilot... I won't let you do this."   
  
The limp doll fades away, and the boy's arms fall limply to his   
sides, though the expression on his face remains frozen. The  
girl moves to his front, and stares into his eyes.   
  
"But I am sorry for hurting you, for pushing you over the edge.   
I really am... What did you ever see in me, anyway? ... Will you   
still see it after all that's happened here?"  
  
She reaches out a hand to his hand, her eyes visibly softening. She   
sighs, speaks in a barely audible, tender whisper.  
  
"The Evangelions have gone. It's just you and me now. But even   
without them, we still dance well together, don't we? ...   
Don't we? ... We can start over... Please be real...   
So, look at me..."  
  
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.  
  
"Rei? I'm ready."  
  
She shrieks as a force like a raised barrier throws her down on   
the floor, away from him. The room around them is blasted away, walls   
crashing down, this temporary world disappearing. With the walls  
gone, the storm winds come screeching in, into the darkness of the  
void around them, and stabbing her mind like a hacksaw with the   
ferocity of its ethereal howling.  
  
The boy screams, raising his hands to ears, his mouth open in pain.  
As he buckles and falls to his knees, the girl rushes forward to   
catch him, but she crashes, blocked by the invisible barrier. She   
bangs her fists furiously on the glass barrier and desperately   
screams his name. He opens his eyes, but upon seeing her, he   
immediately recoils, eyes flashing in remembered pain and anger.   
His own scream is drowned out by the intensifying wind. She reaches   
out her arm, trying desperately to break through the barrier.  
  
"Isn't there a way through this hurt!?" she screams. "I told you  
already, I won't give up!"  
  
She has a brief vision of her arm reaching out to the sun, in a  
sky swarming with vulture-winged Evas.  
  
She blacks out from the onslaught of the dream.  
  
The sound of the cello music, soothing, saunters slowly, discreetly   
into the background, and into the shadows of her mind...  
  
She wakes up struggling to breath around the pain in her throat.   
And she sees him, his face contorted in grim agony. She raises   
up her hand... past pain, uncertainty, relief... and touches him,   
affectionately brushing his hair, carressing his cheek. Her   
hand lingers on him, unwilling to let him go, and she gazes   
longingly at him, afraid to blink, or to let go, lest he   
disappear again.   
  
He is real. She is real. The avalanche of emotions overwhelming  
her.  
  
He opens his eyes wide, stunned to his core as he falls into her   
eyes, and his grip loosens. His voice chokes, a shuddering croak.   
Like fragments of a shattered looking glass barrier, warm copious   
tears rain down from his eyes to her cheek. And the boy slowly   
collapses in a convulsive heap, broken at last by the immensity   
of his self-inflicted sin, terrified by the enormity of her   
gesture and the gratuitous endearment in her eyes, and he falls,   
shaking and sobbing piteously, over her still and wounded form.  
  
She gazes up at a moon framed by a blood-red twilight sky.  
  
They're on the beach, she realizes; the only sound other than the  
boy's sobbing is the languoruous crashing, sighing and murmur of   
the primeval surf against the shore. The sea breeze is cold, the   
air crisp and clean, like something bought new.  
  
She breathes it in, and ponders her condition. Her left eye is   
covered in bandages, along with her entire right arm. Her battle   
injuries from the white Evas. She feels the burning pain from her   
wounds return, sharp and throbbing like a slow-burning fire in a   
body now far too tired to move.  
  
Is this reality, she ponders. A despairing thought forms in her   
mind: "And if it is? Are we the only ones who survived? No..."  
  
She looks back at the frail Third Child, still shaking with tears,   
awash in his guilt, and afraid to face her. "What if his guilt   
costs him his sanity again," she wonders anxiously to herself.   
  
"...I feel sick..."   
  
Silence. Darkness. She tries to say more, to reach out past  
her pain, but falls asleep, her mind and body exhausted   
beyond words.  
  
(To be continued...)  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Epilogue - Redemption/Take Me To Your Dr...

  
  
Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha  
The Second Child / Promises To Keep  
  
Part V Epilogue - Redemption/Take Me To Your Dream, I Will Walk With You  
  
  
A light in the void. Kyoko Langley Soryu speaks.  
  
"It is peaceful here, where the earth meets the sea. The fluid  
line where the one defines itself in relation to the other. A  
constant mutual creation..."  
  
"Asuka met me here, under the trees, close to the shore, before the   
Impact. Only the trees then were elms and oaks, not sakuras. She's   
asked him now, the Third Child, to meet her here. She wants an   
understanding with him."  
  
"Dream, my children..."  
  
The voice merges into the voice of the surf on the shore.  
  
----  
  
That night, as they sleep, Rei Ayanami comes to them again inside   
their dream.  
  
"This dream smells like Soryu," whispers Rei in the void. "And   
Ikari too... He's followed her into the same dream." Inside the   
dream, Rei opens her eyes with an inaudible gasp. She looks around,   
wonderment in her eyes, orienting herself to this new world.  
  
In the dream Rei has blossomed into a mature young woman, in   
jeans and a sweatshirt... and this somehow pleases her. She is   
standing on a grassy rolling hill filled with trees, cherry   
blossoms in full bloom, under a cloudless evening sky. She  
hears the sounds of the shore and heads toward a promontory  
overlooking it.  
  
The First Child stands there alone, gazing out on the clear  
water that reflects the light of the full moon on her serene face.  
  
She is Waiting.  
  
The Second Child walks out of the shadows and faces her, asking,  
"Am I still dreaming?"  
  
The Third Child walks out of the shadows and faces her, asking,  
"Am I still dreaming?"  
  
"Yes," she replies simply. "This is not hell. This is not  
purgatory. You're not dead. This is merely a world you create."  
  
"Then... then is the world still dead after all?", asks the   
boy in a breaking voice.  
  
A reflected image of each of the two Children appears in Rei's eyes.   
She blinks. "You create the world everytime you ask these questions.  
Why do you live? Why do you die? What do you live for? What are you   
here for? Who are you here for? ... Who is it you fear? Who do you   
wish for? ... Who do you love? How do you love?"  
  
"Misato told me to look for my own answers... but I've lost her  
cross..."  
  
"Misato has found her own path, though her path lights yours. As I  
have found mine. But Asuka shares your cross now, as you both wished."  
  
"I... I understand," replies Asuka, and she turns around and walks  
toward the shore. She pauses to glance over her shoulder, and her eyes  
meet Shinji's. The boy looks away, shaking with fear, and hurt   
flashes in the girl's eyes. Repressing a quiver in her voice,  
Asuka locks glances with Rei for a second, then glances back in  
his direction. "Shinji?" whispers Asuka, "Don't be too long. The  
shore isn't so far that you can't reach it... I'll see you in the   
morning." And she resumes her walk down to the shore.  
  
"Asuka..." the boy whispers out. Takes a half-step towards the girl,  
one arm outstretched, but he hesitates.  
  
"This is your wish, Shinji?" Rei whispers to him.  
  
"Yes, it is... but..."  
  
"Yet you think yourself unworthy of this dream?" she asks with a trace   
of puzzlement.  
  
"But... but I betrayed her! I don't deserve her! ... How can I face her...  
what can I be to her... knowing I destroyed the world?"  
  
"She knows what you did. Yet she chose this dream. Think about it."  
  
"She chose to...? But what if she hates me again..."  
  
"You still fear her?"  
  
"I... I do, on some level..."  
  
"It's all right, Shinji. This is normal. This is the price of keeping the  
barriers that you chose to bring back in order to bring her back.  
And I believe she feels the same fears as you." She smiles. "If you  
wish to know her, you have to talk to her yourself..."  
  
"M... Mom? Wait..."  
  
"Yes, Shinji?"  
  
"Well... don't you think... a dead world is a strange place to  
still... feel what I feel for her?"  
  
"As strange as seeing rain in the desert perhaps. But it's not wrong  
to wish for rain in the desert, and the rain is not always a mirage.  
And where there's rain, there has to be life."  
  
"Is there? I look around and see a dead world. And yet... But I   
believe my feelings are real..."  
  
"Look at these sakura blossoms, Shinji. Back in the old days,   
they reminded people of how things only stay with us for a   
fleeting moment before they are gone, and how, after the cold, they  
always come back. Even though the sakuras are just a dream now,  
they still exist because they were real to me. Remember this, son.   
Life will find a way, if you let it."  
  
Rei, and the Yui within her, closes her eyes, leaving the two Children  
to their Dream.  
  
"Go. She awaits you..."  
  
Shinji wakes up with a start, squinting his eyes against the light  
of the sun rising from behind the hill. He's lying down in the sand, his  
back to the sea, by the shore where he had collapsed crying the   
previous night.  
  
He looks around him, and not finding her beside him he rises in panic,   
his heart racing with fear at the thought of losing her again.  
  
"Asuka?... Asuka!!..."  
  
He sees her further down the shore, sitting down on the sand. The light  
of the rising sun slowly reaching out to her pensive form. She is gazing  
out, deep in thought it seems, at something across the sea.  
  
He approaches her... diffidently, from behind, catching his breath,  
and stands to her right behind her, his hands in his pockets. He   
follows her gaze and holds his tongue. The object of their silent   
thoughts lie far out on the horizon, an awesome question mark on their   
present existence. The pale white head of Lillith-Rei, staring out   
into the sky and the receding sunset stars with what could be a small   
enigmatic smile on her lips.   
  
The two surviving Children are not quite sure if the image  
even exists. It seems to fade in and out of physical reality,  
like a morphing dream at the edge of waking up, like a ghostly mirage   
flickering on red desert sand dunes. Until its white visage melds with  
the light of the ever-rising sun sweeping away the remnants of evening,   
and disappears from the naked eye.  
  
Gone like a dream, gone like the world he knew.  
  
But to the Third Child's relief, the Second Child is still there  
with him.  
  
"Asuka... I'm... I'm glad you're okay."  
  
"You can come closer, Shinji. I promise not to yell at you  
this time around."  
  
He silently moves closer, then hesitates, wondering how much  
closer he should get, whether he should sit down, or remain  
standing, whether he should keep his hands in his pockets,  
whether he should speak up, and about what, or...   
  
"You know, Shinji..." Her soft whisper interrupts his indecision.  
  
From the corners of their eyes they lock glances, as she favors   
him with a soft, diffident smile, and she herself is relieved  
to still find him there.  
  
"You should have seen me fight off the army and the EVA Series," she  
says to him, life returning to her voice. "I was in top form, you'd   
have been proud of me. We could have saved the world together, you   
and I." At this he suddenly turns away in shame, and she sighs.   
"But... you were late when I needed you, Shinji, you were such...   
such a..."  
  
"I know, I was such a moron," he whispers, staring down guiltily  
at his feet, but wondering at the conspicuous absence of the old   
derogatory whip in her voice. "You were right. I was only thinking   
of myself."  
  
He calmly takes off his shoes and wades a bit further out, letting   
the red water lap at his bare ankles, and soak the edges of his pant   
legs. Trying to wash away the weariness from his feet. "Everyone   
around me was braver than I was, but your bravery came to nothing   
because I was a self-absorbed fool..."  
  
"No..." she says.  
  
He turns around to see her staring at him. Not angrily, he notes,  
as he gazes into the same eyes that held him the previous night...  
  
"No? What do you mean...?"   
  
"That's not all of it. I was late too, late getting to my senses.   
I shouldn't have pushed you away in the first place... I  
shouldn't have left you, alone to hold the fort. I was selfish.  
We were team mates, partners, and I destroyed our team. I'm sorry.   
I don't blame you for what happened. You tried your best."  
  
"How did...? Was... was Ayanami with you during all this too?"  
  
"Yes... I know what you went through. Not all the bloody details,   
but I saw enough of it to understand," she shudders. "Poor Rei.   
I think she tried her best to make up for our foolishness," she   
continues, staring pensively again at the spot of the departed   
apparition on the horizon. "I'm impressed... I never thought   
our Wondergirl had it in her."  
  
"She was still in my dream last night," he confesses, relaxing   
a little, still facing her.  
  
"She looked older, a grown woman exactly like your mother,   
except for the color of her hair and those eyes. She was   
standing on a hill, under some extinct sakura trees, only   
those trees were alive and in full bloom. She was... so   
pretty... looking out on a lake, in the moonlight, like   
she was waiting for something. We asked her if we were   
still dreaming, and she said yes..."  
  
"So you had the same dream then..."  
  
"I guess so. Though I don't remember waking up."  
  
"And I don't remember falling asleep. This is all so strange..."  
  
"How so like Rei... Was she the last Angel all this time?"  
  
"No... I'm not sure. There was another one, the Fifth Child,  
the pilot who replaced you... he turned out to be Tabris. He  
betrayed us, so I killed him, or rather, he let me do so.  
He was supposed to have been the last Angel."  
  
"A Fifth Child replaced me? Hmph, no wonder you got into   
trouble... Did he happen to have red eyes like Rei's?"  
  
"Er, yeah... how did you know?"  
  
"I saw them together during the Impact... they  
were speaking to me about something... maybe they're  
one and the same Angel somehow, like Israfel? But  
they were people too, just like us..."  
  
"... Misato did mention that Kaworu and Rei were both  
partly cloned from Angel DNA... that my father and SEELE were  
the puppet masters, that they exploited us as long as they  
could use us... but Misato also mentioned that Humanity was   
the last Angel, that we brought this on ourselves, that only   
we could save ourselves..."  
  
"More riddles, Third Child?"  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be sorry. This is all so overwhelming, that's all.  
Maybe there'll never be any complete answers..."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"Shinji... I'm sorry about your father..."  
  
"No... it's okay. He was right, you know. I had to grow up,  
get over him. But he was wrong too. He was the one running away,  
and I refuse to be like him in that way... I just hope,  
wherever he is, he finds what he's really looking for."  
  
"I see..."  
  
"So... how about me? What do you... think of me? Do you think   
this place I've run away to is any better than what he wanted?  
Is this any more real?"   
  
"I think so, even if this may still be a dream. Maybe that part   
of the dreaming where you've discovered something about yourself,   
and you have a blank slate of a world from which you can move on.   
A place with no secrets... just faith that you can move on...   
You know what I'm talking about?"  
  
"I guess. Maybe we're both here because it takes more than  
one person to make things real again... but you must be mad at   
me for the fact that we're alone... that everyone's gone..."  
  
"I think they'll come back here, or we'll come back to them.  
Stranger things have happened to us. It'll work out somehow.   
We'll go insane, again, if we believe otherwise..."  
  
"No, I don't want you to suffer for this. It's all my fault if   
they don't-"  
  
"Don't you start that again, Third Child!"  
  
"Uhm...sorr-... uhrm..."  
  
He stares in confusion as she giggles.  
  
"What!?"  
  
"At least you're behaving normally now. I guess that   
really is the Ikari I know standing there!"  
  
"Thanks, I guess... Well... How about you? Are you really   
back? Are you real?"  
  
"Funny you should ask, Third Child. I had been itching to ask   
you that exact same question all morning."  
  
"I... I thought they had killed you..." He turns around, his  
back to her, to blink back the tears suddenly forming in his   
eyes.  
  
"I did so too... but Rei got into the picture somehow. I told  
her I wouldn't give up living...and, well... you... well,  
you were bloody late!"  
  
He hears her rise, hears her feet splashing in the waves.  
He turns around worriedly.  
  
She's suddenly standing in front of him now, facing him   
with a questioning, almost mischievous look in her eyes. Her  
hands clasped behind her back, her face leaning forward  
towards him, making him gulp.  
  
"You were screaming your lungs out, you know," she whispers  
to his face.  
  
"Uhm... I... did... did you..."   
  
"Loud enough to wake up the dead. Hm?"  
  
"Uhm... you..." he stammers, thinking to himself, she heard  
that? How much more does she know of what went on...?  
  
"Shinji... if this is really you, we have to talk," she  
says with a frown, suddenly serious and hesitant.  
  
"Uhm...." Blurt it out, he thinks to himself. Don't be  
afraid. Not again. There should be no secrets in this  
place...  
  
"Rei and I weren't on good terms. There was a reason why  
she went out of her way to bring me back. Do you know  
what it was?"  
  
"We were both in our Evas when the Impact happened..."  
  
"No, that's not it. Rei was Gendo's doll. Whatever it was  
he was planning, she told me she refused to go along with  
it. Instead it seems she went to you. That I can understand,  
Shinji, seeing how much better you treated her, and how much  
she likes you."  
  
"Uuhh..."  
  
"Besides, I was dead! Or dying. I should have disappeared  
into the LCL along with everyone else, even if my Eva  
absorbed me like your Eva absorbed you once. Why did she   
bring me back?"  
  
"You... you didn't choose to come back?"  
  
"I did! Even after all the hell I lived through, yes,   
I wanted to come back! But she gave me an early choice.   
She made it very clear she was intervening to give me that   
choice. She let me join you in this... this empty world   
of yours. Why!?"  
  
"... She knew..."  
  
"What? Shinji, I want to know!"  
  
"She knew I wanted you back..."  
  
"... Wh-... Didn't you want everyone back?"  
  
"Yes! I did! I do! But... there's something more...   
Deep down, I especially wanted you back. Maybe that made   
all the difference, what I feel for you... when I thought   
I'd lost you forever, I had nothing left to live for..."  
  
"Shinji..."  
  
"I... I don't know why... I desperately wanted you around,  
even if you called me a moron all the time... I needed you  
to like me, even though you were unattainable, it  
had to be you, out of all the women in the world...  
I wanted us to be together, I wanted to   
understand you... I wanted you, but... but..."  
  
"But... what, you thought I hated you, didn't you?"  
  
"Yes. What else could I think!? Didn't you? You said so   
yourself! You threw me out of your life!"  
  
"I know what I said, what I did. It wasn't what I really  
meant, believe me. But I would have understood if you learned  
to hate me because of it. I was afraid of needing you. Didn't   
you learn to hate me, when I kept pushing you away?"  
  
"No! ...I couldn't hate you... I just blamed myself... for  
hurting everyone I touch, for letting you down so much...  
I didn't deserve you..."  
  
"Look, it wasn't your fault. I was so messed up. We both   
were. We both gave up on ourselves."  
  
"Why... did it have to be like that?"  
  
"Shinji... at least you tried."  
  
"I tried to understand you, I really did...  
when I thought I lost you, I thought I might finally find   
you in the Instrumentality, but I only made things worse,  
becaused I couldn't find myself there, and I couldn't   
find the real you there either... "  
  
"Well, I'm here now..."  
  
"Asuka?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Do you regret coming back?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Even though there's nothing left? Even if I have nothing to offer  
you except this?" He gestures plaintively at the desolateness   
surrounding them. "...Did you know this might happen?"  
  
"Yes, Rei mentioned that possibility. She said I could wait for  
the world to re-form, that I didn't have to join this world of   
yours if I didn't want to..."  
  
"But... but you still came back..."  
  
"I didn't want you to be alone, okay?"  
  
"Asuka... you really mean that?"  
  
"Don't think I don't appreciate your reaching out, Shinji."  
  
"Uhm... You... don't hate me?"  
  
"No, of course I don't! I don't hate you. Don't be stupid...   
oh, come here, moron... sit with me..." She sits down, with a  
sigh, on the sand and leans her tired frame on a boulder...  
  
He kneels in front of her, bowing his head. "... Do you... think   
you can forgive me for all this?" he asks through the lump in  
his throat.  
  
"Closer. Over here. I won't bite, you know."  
  
He moves closer, cautiously sitting off to her side. The girl grunts   
impatiently and sidles up next to him, closing the remaining  
distance. And the boy barely suppresses a heart-palpitating gasp as   
the girl suddenly lays her head on his shoulder. He gulps  
as she sighs and nuzzles her cheek against his chest.  
  
"Uhm... Asuka?" he manages through the racing of his heart.  
  
"Shh. Don't shake so much. This is... comfortable."  
  
And bracing himself to be pushed away, he slowly,   
hesitantly drapes his arm over her shoulder, and presses his cheek   
against her hair.   
  
Eliciting another giggle from the girl.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're shaking like crazy, idiot."  
  
"Am not." He chuckles nervously, feeling his face blush a deep   
red, as he scratches his head with his other hand. And thinking,   
he's shaking all right, but he can't help it...  
  
"If you say so... moron..."  
  
And he tries to force himself to relax, reflecting on the   
intoxication of smelling her hair, feeling the softness of her   
body leaning on him.  
  
He must really be dreaming this. This spot of comfort in a   
desolate world. Rain in the desert.  
  
"... You, uhm... you look beautiful, you know..."  
  
"With these bandages, huh? Right."  
  
"But it's true."  
  
"Well. Thank you."  
  
But he dearly wants some of this to be real.  
  
If only he could heal everything that went wrong.  
  
"How are your injuries? Still hurt?"  
  
"No, I don't feel them anymore. Dull throbbing ache now and  
then, nothing more. Still a bit tired. But I bet you I can beat   
you in the gym pretty soon."  
  
"The gym?"  
  
"Well, yeah, somewhere down there the Geofront and NERV facilities  
might still be intact. You should try to be more optimistic  
for me, you know."  
  
"Maybe you're right... we can hole up there until we find other   
survivors, over the radio or the net. The MAGI might still be running,   
so power and life support might still be on. There might be enough   
food there to keep us alive a little longer. We can start looking once  
you're rested, or I can look while you rest. There should be tunnels   
down to the Geofront all over-"  
  
"Uhm, Shinji?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Let's just stay here a bit longer, okay?"  
  
"Oh... sure."  
  
They rest, letting the sun rise higher up its path through  
the clear sky, bathing them in its warming glow.   
  
"Hey," she finally whispers.  
  
"Uh-huh?"  
  
"You're pretty quiet. What're you thinking?"  
  
"I'm... I'm wishing we were doing this somewhere else."  
  
"Somewhere else?"  
  
"I mean, beside a real lake, real water, green trees, white  
clouds in a sunny blue sky, birds flying... back when the world  
was still alive..."  
  
"We should have done this sooner."  
  
"Asuka..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Thanks for coming back."  
  
"You're welcome, Shinji..."  
  
...  
  
"Shinji?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You know... we might as well discuss it... what if  
we're the last ones left alive?"  
  
"We still have each other... like you said, we can still  
save the world, you and I..."  
  
"Shinji?"  
  
"Don't you dare get any premature ideas about my giving you  
children, okay?"  
  
"Wha!? No!! I mean, no, I didn't mean it to be anything like  
that, really, please don't be mad-"  
  
"Sshh," she stops his panicking stammering with a hand on his  
mouth and an amused smile. "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure  
we were clear on that. Give us some time, okay?"  
  
He nods. And with that she lays her head on his bosom, allowing  
the two of them a closer embrace.  
  
He sighs and relaxes. And allows himself a small relieved smile  
as he concentrates on her again.  
  
A minute later she speaks up again, still lying on his chest.  
  
"Tell me though, what will happen when we hurt each other   
again? And again after that?"  
  
"I'll keep trying... if that's fine with you... I meant it  
when I said I wanted to understand, that I wanted you... uh...  
that I, well..." he stammers as he tries to form the nervous  
words.  
  
She smiles.  
  
"It's a start. If you can promise me that, I'll promise to  
allow you to be stupid every now and then."  
  
"Oh. That's nice of you... I guess. But it's a deal."  
  
She raises her head and locks her eyes to his, and whispers,  
"You're not hopeless, you know. We might actually get this   
to work... but be patient with me, okay?"  
  
"I will... I'm sorry I had messed it all up so badly..."  
  
"Shh. You've saved my life, in more ways than one, Shinji...  
I was yours before either of us knew it, and I still am."  
  
"Asuka... I... I, uhm..."  
  
Favoring him with a smile, she takes hold of his   
hand. "I like you too..."  
  
--------  
  
One night Rei Ayanami watches them again inside their dream.  
  
In the dream she has blossomed into a mature young woman in   
jeans and a university sweatshirt, and she is standing unnoticed   
on a grassy rolling hill filled with trees, cherry blossons in   
full bloom, under a clear blue early morning sky. She lets her   
face bask in the warm glow of the sun.  
  
The Three Children dream this together, of a place that exists   
in the minds of dreamers, of a place some would claim does not   
exist.   
  
And in the dream there is a gravel pathway by the crystal clear   
lake, and there walks a tall, slender young man, with black hair   
and haunted, timid blue eyes, a necklace with a white crucifix   
visible over his blue sweater. The young man is walking and   
holding hands with a lithe, energetic young woman, a tall  
long-haired redhead with intense blue eyes and wearing a bright   
red dress. She frowns up at him, and leans over to whisper something  
in his ear, eliciting a sparkle in his eyes as they smile together,  
and then she playfully pinches his nose, and they both laugh.  
And under the sakura blossoms the couple lingers, and he gently   
pulls her in closer in a protective embrace; they face each other,   
smiling, she laughs, tenderness in her eyes, and they slowly kiss.   
  
And Rei stands watching them in the distance, and for the first   
time since merging with Lillith, smiles happily, knowing this   
is a dream the two are sharing tonight. And she keeps this   
precious dream in her heart, in a corner where things are meant  
to exist forever.  
  
No matter what happens after this, she says to herself, they will   
always have this moment, this young dream, together, an embodiment   
of their promise, and the promise will always be real.  
  
"God is in His heaven, all is right with the world, and this   
dream is our eternal offering to Him, for the renewal of the  
Covenant with Adam. For That which is dreamed can never be lost,   
and can never be undreamed. Thank you, Shinji, Asuka."  
  
And under the cherry blossoms, the First Child turns around and   
starts to walk down the hill, back among the growing holiday   
crowds enjoying the weekend, their family picnics and their   
dates, and the arrival of spring in a new world.  
  
"It is done Yui; what will we do now?" she whispers in   
her mind. And Yui of the Evangelion answers.  
  
"This is the mission of the Evangelion. You and I are faith, hope,   
the sentry to the Eden in their heart, to bear witness to their  
promise to each other. As long as we remember, their dream  
will not die, and humanity will continue to exist, even when  
the sun, moon and stars are gone. For reality is at the end   
of a dream, and dreams are at the end of a reality.   
In the meantime, the world we knew is ready to renew. These   
Children, the representatives of humanity, are free. They   
have affirmed themselves and their world."  
  
She is met on the hill shortly thereafter by Nagisa, smiling,   
hands in his pockets. He takes in a deep breath, closing his   
eyes, head thrown back, relishing the fresh air. "I guess   
we're all back home now," he says to her with a satisfied grin.  
  
The soft breeze brings with it a faint echo of far-away voices.  
  
"Can you find them, Maya?" asks an old man's anxious voice.  
  
"..."  
  
"Sir, I may have radio contact... Shinji? Shinji, where are   
you? Asuka..."  
  
Silence. Darkness. A light in the void, expanding. A coalescing   
of memories, a consciousness awakening, igniting others around it.   
And warmth, that grows with a newborn memory carrying Shinji's   
voice, awe-struck and excited, replying to a question.   
  
"She's fine. She's alive... we both are."  
  
Warmth.  
  
"Asuka...?"  
  
Asuka hears her name whispered. A gentle, nervous kiss on her  
lips, a breath of warm air on her cheek. A breath of Life.  
  
"... Shinji...?"  
  
The Second Child wakes up, drifting into consciousness.  
  
She hears the empty static buzz of a NERV military radio being  
shut off.  
  
Consciousness.  
  
This is real.  
  
She feels fingers stroke a lock of her hair on her forehead,  
and she opens her eyes, slowly, letting the world shift into  
focus. The warmth from a campfire crackles outside, an old   
ricepot nestled beside it, the fire light reaching in against   
the dark and illuminating the inside of a small tent, where   
she lies on some blankets. She turns and gazes up at a smiling   
boy sitting on the ground next to her, haunted yet grateful   
blue eyes looking down on her.  
  
Real.  
  
"You're awake." He smiles, affection clearly showing on his face.  
He rubs his eyes, not sure how long he's been awake, sitting  
and watching her and secretly reveling in his dream of kissing her.   
  
He turns aside briefly to pick up a small coffee pot filled with   
clear water, which he offers to her with shaking hands.  
  
She doesn't reply, at first. She sits up slowly, taking the pot.   
She drinks the water in a few short gulps, quenching the thirst   
in her dry throat. She notes, in passing, the early gray light of  
sunrise outside the tent.  
  
And what sounds, in the distance, like birds and seagulls. And  
the smell of fresh rain on the earth from the previous evening's  
drizzle.  
  
She looks back to him, and returns the pot. Their fingertips brush   
briefly against each other. He seems about to say something,  
swallows hard instead, and just gazes at her.  
  
"Thank you." She smiles at him nervously. And leaning forward,  
steals a short kiss from him.  
  
They both blush.  
  
His hand shyly reaches out, fingers meeting hers, and clasps   
her hand longingly. He kisses her back and smiles at her. She   
leans in closer as they embrace, tightly, cradled in each other's   
existence.  
  
"Asuka. I'm here. You came back. I'm... I'm so glad."  
  
  
THE END  
THE BEGINNING  
  
  
------  
Writer's Notes:  
Well, that's it for now. The first four chapters of  
this story can stand on their own, and I had originally  
intended to stop with the final scene of EoE. But this   
epilogue tries to create a more optimistic ending beyond   
that famous final scene, softening Eva's nihilistic tones,  
while retaining the existentialist tint of the TV and   
movie endings.   
  
In particular, Asuka's awakening and co-redemption with   
Shinji in this Epilogue completes the circle started in   
Chapter 1 and in the opening scene of "Air", and rounds out   
the rebirth and redemption theme of this story and, I like   
to think, of EoE as well.  
  
C&C is welcome, you can post one now (feel free to skip  
the "Writer's Notes" chapter that follows this one) if you're   
reading this at fanfiction.net. You can also mail me at   
aninosakanto@yahoo.com.  
  
Thanks for reading!  
  
---------  
****  
James Lee, April 2001  
aninosakanto@yahoo.com  



	6. *** Writer's Notes ***

  
  
Neo Genesis Evangelion: Apocrypha  
The Second Child / Promises To Keep  
  
--------  
Writer's Rambling Miscellaneous Notes  
--------  
  
No, sorry, this is *not* a new chapter nor a new epilogue of   
"The Second Child / Promises To Keep". I merely decided, while updating   
these Writer's Notes, to write them out to a separate file.  
  
So if you haven't posted or emailed a review, you can do so now before  
you read these notes, since my expository writing might just bore you :-)  
  
First, the disclaimers.  
  
Neon Genesis Evangelion and its characters are the property of Gainax, Inc.   
of Japan, and the U.S. English releases are licensed by ADV (for the TV   
series) and Manga (for the movies). No pecuniary or malicious intent  
should be attributed to this writer, and he in fact encourages you to   
buy the aforementioned companies' products. This writer respects the  
owners' copyrights, and seeks no profit from this story.  
  
This story you have just read is "fan fiction" and is not connected to   
nor authorized by Gainax. While this fic adds elements to the EoE movie,   
it does, however, try to remain true in all other respects to Eva canon.  
Or at least those aspects of Eva canon that I'm aware of.  
  
Dialogue for the flashbacks are taken from the English subs and dubs  
released by ADV. Since the movies and the "Director's Cut" Episode 22  
scenes have not as of this writing been released to the U.S. market,  
dialogue for flashbacks of these scenes are taken from the script  
translations found on various fans' sites on the Internet.   
  
Manga will release the U.S. English version of EoE in the latter half  
of 2001. The Director's Cut versions of the last TV episodes, including  
Episode 22, will probably never be released in English-dubbed form. The  
LD's, VHS tapes, and Region 2 DVD's are available, however, from various  
anime shops and Internet sites if you know where to look.  
  
And now for some explanations for the story.  
  
This fic is based on the movie End of Evangelion, especially the   
"My True Heart For You" episode and the epilogue episode "One More Final/  
I Need You". The latter is probably among the most   
heart-wrenching movie scenes I have ever watched, something I both   
loved and hated. Considering the sheer simplicity and brevity of the   
scene, its dark portrayal of cosmic hope, despair, and anger, and  
the moving force of its pathos and ambiguity, the scene left me stunned,  
frozen in my seat, muttering "What the hell...?"  
  
The strong ambiguity in the ending to EoE is probably amply  
described by the director himself when he was interviewed about  
NGE in general and he descibed the whole series as an act of burning  
his angst into film: "I tried. I don't know what the result will  
be. That is because within me, the story is not yet finished."  
Indeed, the act of finding life's meaning doesn't end, never gives  
full closure, even in his movie.  
  
Whether or not the NGE characters Shinji and Asuka can overcome the  
barriers between them is left up to the viewer to speculate on. There is  
reason to hope, and reason to doubt, and enough uncertainty to make  
one feel sick. NGE could not have had a more apt "ending."  
  
But for some of us who were touched by the story of NGE and recognize  
its director's message of angst, there is enough faith to go around, to   
believe that a happier continuation is possible, even if the gist of the   
story continues only in our minds.  
  
Of course, sometimes we don't like things to be *too* ambiguous, and   
we're tempted to write our own myths.  
  
This fic was written partly to flesh out parts of the Eva story (especially   
the fate of one of the major characters) in such a way as to leave a more   
optimistic ending, a "light at the end of the tunnel", while at the same   
time trying to retain at least some of the moody flavor of the original   
story as a plaintive grasping and groping for meaning against the awesome   
darkness and mystery of existence.  
  
As for various odds and ends within the story...  
  
Rei's apocalpytic monologues (i.e., the Dead Sea Scroll prophecies and   
the modified myth of Lillith) are fictional additions to the Eva myths   
and are not to be mistaken as real-life theology, of course :)  
  
Rei's apocalyptic line regarding "a man with no faith, a woman who would   
scorn love" points to the Children as an inverted image of the Biblical   
character of Job. Whereas the elderly Job survives his tribulations through   
his existing albeit shaken faith, the Children have to discover faith   
from scratch in order to survive their tribulation.   
  
"By the waters of Babylon" is a reference both to the scene in "One   
More Final" in which Shinji weeps over Asuka by the red LCL sea,   
as well as to these words in Psalm 137: "By the waters of Babylon   
we lay down and wept, and wept for thee Zion. We remember thee, we   
remember thee Zion." It is also the title of a well-known short story,   
by Stephen Vincent Benet, which shares some themes with this fic.  
  
Rei's participation in the Children's post-Instrumentality dream is partly   
an allusion to the dialogue between Rei and Asuka outside Shinji's   
hospital room, when Asuka asks Rei, "Don't tell me you don't dream?"  
  
The confrontation in the elevator between Rei and Asuka in Part 1 is   
intentionally reminiscent of their infamous, if less dramatic, encounter   
in Episode 22.   
  
The theory that Asuka did not die, either in her Eva in "Air" or in the   
Instrumentality death sequence backdropped by "Komm Susser Todd" in   
"My True Heart For You", is based on the observation that she was the only   
character aside from Rei and Shinji whose remains weren't seen dissolved   
into LCL, even though characters who were earlier killed off that day,   
including Misato, Ritsuko, and various NERV personnel, were seen dissolved   
in Rei's presence. For purposes of this fic, I've accepted the theory  
proposed in various message boards that the splitting of Asuka's upraised  
arm in "Air" was a vivid illusion generated by her neural link with her  
dying Eva.  
  
Asuka's pseudo-flashback to her conversation with Hikari had its context   
shifted on purpose, so that in Asuka's mind they speak of Shinji rather   
than Touji. The context shift is an allusion to the Hikari-Touji   
relationship's apparent role as a foreshadowing device to illustrate the   
depth of the multi-layered tension between the Second and Third Children,   
whose own confused affections for each other were only implied in the TV   
series but have been the subject of so many fan fics even before EoE. The   
scene also brings up Rei's seemingly ambiguous role in both triangles.  
  
Asuka's bitter line "You don't know what I want" is a restatement of   
Hikari's aside "You don't know anything" at Touji's bedside. These and   
other references to the so-called Hedgehog's Dillema and the inability of   
people to completely know one another are sprinkled throughout the fic, as   
in the TV series and movies.  
  
Shinji finding Asuka on the seashore, and her earlier comment that "the   
shore isn't so far that you can't reach it" is an allusion to the bedtime  
conversation between Kaji and Shinji in Episode 18 regarding the gap between   
a man and a woman's heart "on a distant shore", following the enigmatic scene   
in which Asuka clams up after cryptically saying she can't enjoy herself that   
particular night.  
  
The part of Yui's monologue explaining the shift in the focus of Shinji's   
angst from his father to Asuka also serves as an implicit explanation for   
the fact that Rei asks Shinji "Did you really try to understand him/her"   
twice, once in regard to Gendo after the incident with Touji, the second   
time in regard to Asuka during Instrumentality. Both questions occur inside   
a dream sequence involving riding a train, and this fic portrays Asuka's   
finally coming face to face with his pain by bringing her into the train   
with him during Instrumentality.  
  
Asuka's confrontation with the gray-cowled mob in the train station directly   
alludes to a scene from one her dream sequences inside Arael (from the   
Japanese Director's Cut video version), and again points out that her fall   
in Episode 22 was a foreshadowing of Shinji's Instrumentality. The different   
outcome of her second encounter with the gray-cowled LCL mob proves her   
newfound inner strength, and allows for her decisive last confrontation and   
conciliation with Rei.  
  
Rei's farewell appearance in the empty train station accounts for Shinji's   
seeing apparitions of her in Episode 1 and in "One More Final/I Need You".  
  
Kyoko's monologue by the seashore describes Asuka's redemptive dream inside   
her Eva in "Air" as a foreshadowing of Shinji's reconciliation with his   
mother and his reappearance/rebirth by the seashore in "One More Final/  
I Need You". Kyoko's line regarding mutual creation is a restatement in   
visual imagery of the existentialist view of subjective reality, that we   
define each other's selves through our interactions with each other.  
  
Various influences, both Eva and non-Eva, helped in the writing of this fic,   
the principal ones of which are listed below, in addition to the ones listed   
in the Writer's Notes for the previous chapters:  
  
The line "That which is dreamed can never be lost, and can never be   
undreamed" is a quotation from Neil Gaiman's "Sandman: The Wake" specifically   
from the "Exile" story. Whereas the character in Sandman uses the line in   
recollection of the past, Rei inverts the context and uses the line in a   
more forward-looking, hopeful message.  
  
Note also the allusion to Gaiman's "Exiles" story, the allusion  
to the Jewish exiles in "By the waters of Babylon", and the allusion  
in "One More Final" to Adam and Eve (who are, after all, exiles from   
Eden). All point to the idea of being lost, of being alienated; in   
the end, all the two human pilots have left, after having alienated   
themselves from the world, is each other.  
  
The "Day After" scene on the beach is derived from a Gainax LD cover   
artwork, showing a scene from after "One More Final/I Need You".  
  
Kaworu's monologue uses modified snippets from T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men"   
and from Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice" in reference to the destructive   
effect of emptiness in a human heart, while also pointing out the reverse   
side of destruction, which is the construction of something new; i.e., the   
Hegelian concept of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The title "Thesis,   
Antithesis" is therefore an intended play of words on the English title of   
the TV theme song, "Cruel Angel's Thesis". Out of Third Impact would arise   
something new, the "Neo Genesis."  
  
I had thought of quoting a haiku instead of using these Western poems, but   
didn't have anything appropriate available at the time I wrote this fic.  
  
"Promises to keep" comes from the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By Woods on a   
Snowy Evening". The poem, like Dylan's "Rage Against the Dying of the Light"   
has sometimes been interpreted as expressing rejection of early or   
meaningless death, and as an affirmation of life's promise.  
  
"Take me to your dream, I will walk with you" is, I think, the title of a   
J-Pop song which I haven't actually heard; I just thought the phrasing went   
well with this Epilogue. The "theme song" I sorta had in mind for this fic   
was actually the instrumental version of "Thanatos, If I Can't Be Yours" from   
the End of Evangelion OST; the music is played in the movie right after  
Shinji sees the mangled remains of Eva-02. (Portions of the lyrics from the   
vocal version are in fact alluded to in some of the dialogue with Asuka and  
Rei, as you may have noticed anyway.) If you listen to the music, you'll   
notice that a sad, mournful mood permeates the song until we near the end of   
the song. I like to believe that the epilogue of this fic ties in nicely with   
the more upbeat tempo and and hopeful mood with which the music ends. A leap   
of faith into the darkness, towards the possibility of light at the of the   
tunnel.  
  
****  
James Lee, April 2001  
aninosakanto@yahoo.com  
Somewhere in the USA  
AMDG 


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